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After reading the horribly boring and trite “love letters” from the disgraced governor of South Carolina to his Argentinian mistress, it would seem that the ability to write a good love letter is dead. Much less a sonnet, who writes sonnets anymore these days?

After analyzing these terrible pieces of writing, I needed to have my faith in love poetry restored. This desire led me to the wonderful, timeless, heart-melting prose from the most classic love poet in all of history.

Maybe I love this sonnet because my Dad reads it to my Mom on their anniversary, or maybe it’s just simply for the exquisite and captivating language. Either way, it restores my confidence in love, even when it seems nothing else can. I just cried a little when I reread it.

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Got to see Up last night (in 3-D!) which was incredible. It reminded me of something I wrote about a year ago and had forgotten about until last night…
Measurements

“…it is meaningless to ascribe any properties or even existence to anything that has not been measured…nothing is real unless it is observed.” -The Copenhagen Interpretation of a law of Quantum Physics, as described in Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality (source)

The measurement of an object confirms
Its existence and thus
Its dimensions become limited.
height
width
depth
coordinates:
Creating tools to measure until we are measuring the tools themselves.
And yet we still crave the unknown, that without our data scribbled in the margin.
We comb silent waters and climb snowy peaks
In hurried pursuit
Of something still undiscovered:
Unfamiliar measurements whose limits we have not yet set.
The moment that they are determined
(Some new species swimming in a triumphant aquarium,
a butterfly pinned victoriously to corkboard)
Is somehow less sweet than it was to imagine them (fins of impossible color,
Wingspans the size of a barn wall) floating imperceptibly through our imaginations…
Flitting like glowing nightingales down darkened hallways.

This is a poem about feelings and how, even though some feelings feel better than other feelings, it’s important to pay attention to the feelings that don’t feel good, too. They are all there for a reason.

Colors

Being in a still
I saw
All the things
That made me grey
The things that made me yellow
The shades of blue and red
That came

Easily I saw
That one was not more than another
That there were all these shades and colors
For a reason
And they rose and fell
Like a locket on a chest
With the rhythm of a breath

That I
Was not to change the sequence
Or the shades upon my breast
The one that lay upon my thigh
The green upon my hand
That touched
The gold against my neck

Rather, they were there
For me to see
The way they came and went
Shadows sliding on my spine
Light in sinew
Red like wine

Closer than I’ve ever been
To what I am
Which is not me at all
But simply all the colors I have seen;
All the colors I have ever been.

I love dinner parties. I love hostessing in general, but my god do i love a good dinner party, the likes of which we had this weekend. There was haricots verts, delicious homemade marinara sauce, watermelon/feta/mint salad, warm bread and watermelon mojitos. But I must say one of my favorite parts of the meal was dessert. I asked my godmother Ruth for a recipe she brought to Easter lunch: baked plums. She couldn’t recall the exact proportions for the topping, so I made some up, which I thought turned out pretty well. This recipe is delicious, unexpected and simple…like all of Ruth’s recipes; she introduced me to caprese salad when I was little and it’s been one of my favorites ever since. And because you bake the plums, they don’t even need to be ripe! Ours were hard as rocks when we bought them since it’s not plum season, but after we baked them they were soft and juicy and tasted totally ripe.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Place plums in a baking dish, set aside.
Combine sugars and butter in a mixing bowl or food processor. Mix for several minutes, until they are thoroughly combined and there are no more chunks of butter. Add ginger, cinnamon and flour. Mix thoroughly until all ingredients are combined.
Spoon a generous tablespoon of mixture on top of each plum.
Bake in oven for 50 minutes or until plums are juicy and topping is warm and crisp, let cool for a few minutes and serve while warm with vanilla ice cream.

I’ve been thinking a lot about control lately…mostly about things that I do not control and how to be more accepting of those things, situations, people, etc. I think that by accepting what you do not control, you gain control: you gain control of your mind again by not frivolously wasting it on worrying about those things which are out of your realm of command. And when you control your mind, you control your happiness and your life. But it’s scary too. Because somehow I think that if I think about something long enough, or someone long enough, I can change them. I will crack the code, find the secret key, do the magic dance and fix it. So letting go is a pretty brave thing to do because you’re admitting that you do not have control and that you do not need to control that person/situation/fact of life in order to be happy. Instead, you take happiness into your own hands, another scary thing for human beings since we so often associate happiness with the external. But I think we can do it. What do you think?

So, if you have something you need to let go of, and if you want to breathe a collective sigh of releif with me, a cathartic release, a throw your hands in the air overboard motion of acceptance and all the wonderful courage that will follow, then let’s do it together on

We saw the sweetest duo last night at Club 1808. They’re called Slow Club and they’re from Sheffield, England. Hear them here. They sing the sweetest love songs and they’re generally really adorable. Here are some pictures so you can fall in love as much as we did…

Okay bloggies, I’m taking off tomorrw to run around and have fun with my friends. I don’t think I’ll have time for a post tomorrow (cause I’ll be partying so hard whaaaaaat…just kidding kind of) so have a happy friday! I want to hear about your musical discoveries on monday.

Yesterday I went on an accidental treasure hunt. You see, the week before, my roommate had sent me this picture, which her friend had sent her:

Clearly, we both swooned. It is our life’s dream (right, Amrit?) to live in a space with such casual beauty, such wabi-sabi dynamic as this desk embodies. We are constantly rearranging our apartment in the hopes of making it look exactly like this. So imagine my utter joy when I stumbled upon the rest of the house through a little leap-blogging…

I don’t remember where I started, but I ended up here (where you must go the moment you’re done reading this), where all these lovely pictures were posted, and it also led me here and here. So anyway, step into the lovely world and home of Nicolette Camille, floral designer…

Seriously, this is my dream home.

Happy leap-blogging…

xo

Anabird

(Meagan, I wasn’t kidding when I said I loved this new nickname you gave me)

Some nights you just don’t feel like cooking. This is a dish for one of those nights. It looks and sounds a little fancy, but it’s quite simple and delicious.

At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, I’d like to share about the first time I had ravioli with brown butter sage sauce (feel free to skip this part and go to the recipe). I was lucky enough to be taking a train from Florence to Milan with my friend Chloe, it was chilly outside and the train ride was incredibly beautiful. When we got to Milan, we were staying with one of Chloe’s family friends. She welcomed us into her beautiful apartment and promptly served us ravioli with butter sauce. I still remember how good it tasted and how simple it seemed. In fact, all food in Italy felt this way: casual, delicious, simple and special. The quality of the ingredients allows you to get away with amazingly simple recipes. Ideally, this would be eaten at a big table with friends, candles and lots of bottles of wine. But it’s good in any situation.

ravioli with brown butter sage sauce, arugula and prosciutto

serves 2

ravioli (Penne Lane is a good choice. I would suggest cheese, spinach, or mushroom.)

1 1/2 TBSP butter

8 small sage leaves or 4 big leaves

handful arugula

6 slices prosciutto

Cook ravioli according to instructions. Set aside.

Cook butter on low heat. When it melts, add sage. Cook until butter is bubbly and foamy…let it cook like this about 30-45 seconds (until browned).